The invitation arrived without warning, asking Kate to attend a meeting with human resources to “discuss an incident at trivia night”. Kate, then a 24-year-old graduate at big four accounting and consulting firm Ernst & Young, says the night in question had been a boozy event attended by about 100 mainly younger staff.

“I go into the meeting and the whole vibe is really cold,” she says.

The human resources rep told her, as a second person listened in on speaker phone, a complaint had been made on Kate’s behalf, without her knowledge. It alleged that a senior manager in her department had touched her inappropriately during the Brisbane office’s annual quiz night.

“She says there’s going to be consequences over what happened, and I said, ‘Am I in trouble?’ And she says, ‘That’s yet to be determined.’ I thought I was getting fired. I felt a bit sick,” Kate says. “She started asking questions about the night. What did I recall? How much did I drink? How short was my skirt? Did I give him any signals that I wanted him to touch me? She asked about [the senior manager] who had put his hand on my butt. I told her I didn’t give him any signals, that he’s a married man.”

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There were other questions from the HR representative: “She says, 'You have to think about your personal brand going forward and how this reflects on the firm’s brand.’ This was devastating to me because I was the ultimate EY ambassador. They sent me to all the recruitment events, most of which I attended in my own time. I helped run the charity initiatives on our floor and volunteered at nearly every charity function EY held.”

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The meeting ended with Kate nearly in tears. “I asked again, ‘Am I in trouble?’ She says, ‘We’re going to have to review the facts.’ I messaged a friend I worked with, ‘Let’s go to stairwell’, where I burst into tears.”

Kate, who no longer works at the firm, was ordered by HR to complete a course on appropriate workplace behaviour.

The senior manager in question, who left shortly afterwards for a plum overseas posting with the firm, was also disciplined but EY declined to reveal any details due to privacy concerns.

Alleged incidents

"In the past, empathy has been with the transgressor," says Diane Smith-Gander, director at AGL.
Simon Letch

Kate’s story might sound as if it happened in the 1980s or 1990s but it occurred in 2015 at a big international professional services firm.

Kate doesn’t want her real name used as she is is still trying to rebuild her career. Her experience goes to the heart of the #MeToo movement. It also highlights the ineffectiveness of complaint-handling procedures inside many organisations.

She has agreed to tell her story because she feels she was treated unfairly and wants to ensure other women don’t go through the same experience.

The movement, which emerged in the US after revelations of sexual misconduct by former film mogul Harvey Weinstein, has swept the world and many women, mainly in the entertainment field, have spoken for the first time about their experiences. Locally, there have been a handful of stories about sexual harassment in the entertainment sector. In the business sector, The Australian Financial Review has uncovered alleged incidents at several professional services firms, including two big four accounting and consulting firms and a top-tier law firm.

Research led by Professor Rae Cooper found one in 10 women had experienced sexual harassment at work.
Louise Cooper

In late March, high-profile journalist Tracey Spicer launched NOW, an Australian version of Hollywood's "Time's Up" movement against sexual harassment with a $250,000 crowdfunding campaign. She described it as "triage service" to connect survivors of workplace sexual harassment and indecent assault with counselling and legal support.

It is not clear how prevalent sexual harassment is in Australian workplaces because there has been limited research. The default response from many companies is that they receive few complaints and have robust processes in place for anyone who does come forward. But the truth is many victims never make an official complaint, mainly due to fear of reprisal by the perpetrator.

Lack of data

The problem is not confined to professional services firms. A 2018 survey of 2100 women by researchers at the University of Sydney found one in 10 women reported experiencing sexual harassment in their current role.

Angus Armour, CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, says an effective board will ensure there is a strong framework for management to address workplace conduct issues.
Dominic Lorrimer

“If we’ve got 10 per cent of women presently experiencing sexual harassment at work, that is an enormous number of people worried about going to work every day,” says lead researcher Professor Rae Cooper.

“I really think we are at a crossroads about how we think about sexual harassment at work, talk about it and what we do about it. It’s the start of a really long conversation and movement. The fact companies don’t collect the data means we don’t know the full scale and scope and the impact. It also limits the remedial and preventative action we can take.”

A 2015 survey, of 540 lawyers and 268 other professionals, by Rebecca Michalak, found between 48 per cent and 60 per cent of respondents had been exposed to at least some form of sexual harassment.

Dr Michalak says a power imbalance keeps most victims from speaking up. “A critical point is the perpetrator holding power over the victim. In the workplace, and in professional services including legal, the reality is there are simply more males than females in senior and executive roles, so the perpetrator usually holds absolute, hierarchical, legitimate and coercive power over their victims,” she says.

Company director Carol Schwartz says the boards that she is involved with have all raised questions about culture.
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Wake-up call

Michalak says her research was consistent with previous investigations when it found the majority of victims who spoke out about being mistreated in any way, including asking the perpetrator to stop the behaviour or speaking informally with management or HR, were victimised.

The head of the professional body for company directors says the #MeToo movement is a wake-up call for boardrooms around the country and has led to evolving expectations from the board about the way management run the company.

“Australian directors will be aware of high-profile allegations of misconduct, including sexual harassment, and the legitimate community call for more accountability and action on these issues,” says Angus Armour, chief executive of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Amour says an effective board will ensure there is a strong framework for management to address workplace conduct issues.

In a bind

He also reckons boards have a responsibility to ensure their companies have a safe working environment and that policies around harassment and misconduct, complaints handling and reporting of serious and emerging issues are adequate.

“I think one thing that we’ve seen with some cases, without getting into any specific examples, is that people have felt unable to report poor behaviour.”

"High performance is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card," says company director Diane Smith-Gander.
Wayne Taylor

For its part, EY says the firm carried out a thorough investigation into the complaint but acknowledges HR did not handle it in the best manner.

“While protecting the privacy of our people is paramount, we now better understand the importance of feeding back outcomes of investigations to those involved to remove uncertainty and ambiguity,” an EY spokeswoman says.

“Prior to being notified by the Financial Review we were not aware of the issues the individual has now raised regarding her experience during the investigation. This is concerning to us and we have reached out to her directly to better understand her perspective.”

The EY spokeswoman added that the firm had a zero tolerance approach to bullying and harassment of any kind.

Not the first time

The Brisbane office’s annual trivia night, on a mild Friday evening at the end of May, was put on by a firm social club at the Port Office Hotel in the CBD and attended by about 100, mainly younger members of staff. The attendees had organised themselves into themed teams with many dressing up. Kate’s team had opted for gladiators as a theme and a few members wore togas. The drinks flowed freely and one attendee describes getting completely wasted.

Kate recalls there was lots of alcohol, free beer and wine.

“The group had begun to dwindle and I was at the bar talking to the senior manager,” she says. “He was buying shots. I thought, ‘This is cool, I’m talking to senior people, I’m making connections.’ When you’re new, you want to get to know the cool kids, I suppose.”

At some stage during their chat, the man put his hand on her bottom and left it there. At the time, Kate says she didn’t particularly care that he did that and didn’t object or move it. Even after she went to the bathroom and other colleagues specifically warned her against interacting with the man, she went back out and continued talking to him.

With hindsight, wisdom

“I was pretty drunk. I felt awful about the stories I’d been told about him but he was always nice to me. I got back out and we keep talking. He puts his hand back there. It was never going to go further than that. He was hinting for us to get out of there, and I would indicate ‘no’ and he would say ‘more shots’. Eventually, I left.”

Looking back, Kate says she would now handle it differently. “Now, I would just leave straight away if it happened again. I also wouldn’t let HR speak to me like that, I wouldn’t tolerate the idea that the length of my skirt created an invitation for someone to touch me and that I am at fault for that.”

HR queried her repeatedly about her decision to go back out and continue talking to the senior manager. Kate says while she didn’t want him to touch her, she also didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Part of her thinking was that it was behaviour she and her friends experienced on a regular basis.

“Look, I’m used to it in Brisbane. This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. A butt grab is like a handshake,” she says. “A similar thing happened at a PwC Cool Night Classic fun run. A man grabbed my butt then. It was weird for it to happen on a corporate charity fun run but not that surprising – all my friends get their butts grabbed, we are desensitised to it, it’s old news.”

Boys’ club

Kate’s story illustrates what happens when senior staff do not quickly identify and deal with inappropriate behaviour towards women in workplaces, and the problem with HR taking an overly risk-management approach to complaints.

Several women who worked in the Brisbane office at the time, but in different teams to Kate, agree the office was a bit of a boys’ club and say problematic behaviour by the male senior manager towards junior staff was well known.

These women say the senior manager was perceived as good at his job but also arrogant towards junior staff, male and female. There was also at least one other incident where he behaved in an inappropriate way towards a different junior female member of staff in public.

After the complaint on Kate’s behalf, the senior manager was sent on an overseas posting. The feeling of several people was relief he was no longer in the office but also a whispered outrage that he was able to take up the coveted role. He was disciplined by the firm but Kate was never told this. He has since been promoted to director and continues to work at the firm.

Long-term culture

Senior directors say boards are now taking #MeToo seriously with many revisiting their workplace conduct policies.

“The boards that I’m involved with have all raised questions directly with management as to the policies and ultimately culture of their organisation which ensures that safe environment,” says Carol Schwartz, a director at the Reserve Bank of Australia and property developer and investor Stockland.

Heather Ridout, the chairman of industry superannuation fund AustralianSuper, says the long-term culture of an organisation depends upon any untoward or bad behaviour being dealt with and also, most importantly, being seen internally as having been addressed.

One of the challenges companies face is dealing with high-performers who misbehave.

Too much leeway

“In the past, empathy has been with the transgressor. There has been too much leeway for high performers behaving badly. Sanctions have been less public and departures few,” says Diane Smith-Gander, a director at power supplier AGL and conglomerate Wesfarmers.

“This is changing and it’s changing fast. High performance is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card for bad behaviour. Top talent must go through exactly the same steps as any other employee in instances of bad behaviour. Consequence management should have a correct-and-fix option in most cases before the step of terminating employment.”

Colleen Ammerman, a director of Harvard Business School’s Gender Initiative, warned in a recent article that the brilliant but talented jerk could no longer be tolerated as it will cost the firm other talented workers.

“If you have someone who will close a deal at all costs, even by treating people on the team poorly, you as a leader need to look at whether you’re excusing that behaviour and sending a message that certain people are valued more than others,” she says in a Harvard article from April.

Kate stayed at EY for another year after the trivia night and HR encounter but it wasn’t the same. She believes she began to get unfavourable performance reviews as a result of the complaint made on her behalf. The nature of HR’s questioning also acted as a big disincentive to approach HR with any issue, she says.

“It was a costly experience,” she says. “I still feel like the harassment was my fault. I thought about suing.”

Her confidence, a key attribute of surviving and thriving in a professional services firm, and the support of senior colleagues, which is also critical to advancement, were too damaged by the incident, she says. She also recalls losing weight and becoming listless.

“My dad said at the time, ‘You need to get out of there, I’ve never seen you like this.’ But I thought I needed to stick it out. Then I gave up and left. It took me a long time to get over it. I tried to get back into the corporate scene. I went to some interviews, did work here and there for a few months, but I felt I wasn’t into it. I went to Byron Bay and did a yoga course. I was going to become a yoga instructor.”

It took her roughly two years to, in her words, get back into it.

Kate still recalls how she felt after the HR interview where she noted in an email to herself at the time: “After grad camp I was so sold on EY... I couldn’t stop telling everyone how great my week was. All that stuff you said at grad camp: it was so fake. All the firm cares about is how it is perceived in the market.”